Information technology has enabled businesses both small and large to switch from paper based manually tracking systems to automated processes for tracking data and their day to day operations with ease and accuracy.
An efficient way of tracking of processes and data in the prior art was via spreadsheets. Spreadsheets enabled users to organize data and insert code and functions for automatically performing various operations on data for tracking and reporting purposes.
However, tracking and reporting of data using spreadsheets is unmanageable for large quantities of data. Also, sharing of a large volume of data using spreadsheets gets difficult as setting appropriate permissions for restricting various amendments to the data, adding filters suitable for a particular user are not possible. Moreover, the spreadsheets do not give the provision to add triggers for performing certain action on sensing data changes. Hence, manual dependency is still required for tracking data and operations.
Another way of tracking of processes, data and creating custom reports is via custom built software applications. These customized applications not only enable businesses to streamline their operations but also enable efficient tracking of day to day activities. However, building of a software application customized for a particular business involves investing a lot of money and time alike. Time is invested to explain the business requirements, processes required for day to day running of the business, user interface requirements and reports required by the business. The software, as it has to be custom built from scratch, requires time for development, and then it had to go through the software development lifecycle of testing and user acceptance. Many a times, as the user requirements are not effectively incorporated or did not meet the customer's expectation, re-development is required. Hence, this increases the delay in the hosting of the software application at business site.
Therefore, there is felt a need for a system which overcomes the above drawbacks and in which:                a large volume of data can be tracked, shared and viewed securely;        triggers can be added to handle data changes automatically;        application interfaces for a business can be created efficiently in less time and cost; and        processes and reports can be created with minimum efforts and human intervention.        